E36 basic suspension improvements?

[Handlebar]

Ian loved the AX school today, but it appeared to me (100 yards away) that the body roll was vacillating between 'epic' and Otto's commentary "Just watch the ROLL on that thing!" :vomit:

I may help my son out some with cost, but what DIY/budget suggestions would you give to a teen? :cool:

If significant safety issues are present, I definitely factor those in. ;)

[N0tt0N]

All true performance mods are actually safety mods :)

Car goes when you tell it thus removing yourself from harms way, like a oncoming train.
Car stops when you tell it to thus avoiding harm, like a meteor or landing rocket
Car turns when, where, and how you tell it to thus dodging harm, like a charging rhinoceros.
Car stays on the ground with Aero thus avoiding low flying drones.
Car cleans road for others with wide, sticky tires thus making America safe...


And who hates America and keeping America safe?!? Don't be un-American! Buy mods for your kids so they don't join ISIS! Don't be that dad!

[Handlebar]

I meant safety as in - if he don't have this special tool/knowledge (he doesn't - yet), then he could badly injure himself easily or burn the house down.

I will pay a bit more to a professional to avoid catastrophes, but I don't mind him wrenching to save $$$ and caring about his car and his workmanship about the process.

[Jazzbass]

I have no idea what the mechanical state of your E36 is. That said, at best it's 18 yrs old, which means most of the rubber is probably shot if it hasn't been replaced. Like I've said 1000x on this thread (http://dorkiphus.net/porsche/showthread.php?t=35676), BMWs are 80% rubber. Rubber goes bad with age, not miles. E36 suspension is pretty similar to the E46, and that means lots of bushings and ball joints. Assuming this is going to be a street car and not a track car where you'd start considering things like solid mounts, I would start with refreshing a lot of that rubber. Leave shocks and springs alone for the moment and take care of:

- Front suspension ball joints/bushings (a arms, drop links, tie rods)
- Rear suspension ball joins/bushings (subframe, diff, control arms)
- Motor/transmission mounts
- Brake rubber (hoses/seals)
- Fuel lines

Personally I consider all of the above safety and not performance issues. Worn bushings mess up suspension geometry and make hard cornering "interesting". Worn out brake and fuel lines should be replaced for obvious reasons.

Once the car is at the point where it's not going to catch on fire, not going to have the brake pedal go to the floor, and not have the suspension suddenly decide mid-turn that positive camber is a good thing, then have him drive a while and get a feel for the car. Then look at shocks/springs and sways to start taming body roll.

Yeah, I know this is boring advice. No one wants to spend $1000 on bushings and rubber hoses when they could getting some coil overs and big-ass sways. All you do then is introduce more suspension loads on already tired bushings, and geometry changes get even MORE interesting.

[mlytle]

what Chris said!

more driving schools are the best first mods. mod the driver, not the car. (besides obvious safety items like brakes, bushings and bearings)

i drive my stock E36 M3/4 Lux on track in the instructor group regularly on old street tires. looks like a danged 4x4 next to all the slammed "track cars". no issues going quicker than most of the other instructors....with that body roll...

when the student can understand the car dynamics enough to explain what it is doing and what the effect of a suspension mod is, then mods can be made.

[Handlebar]

Teen Street Survival is in two weeks, and he is signed up for all AX with Potomac this year.

I will look into the info above - as will he.

Thanks!

[BlackTalon]

Teen Street Survival is in two weeks..Very good decision -- it's a great program. I spent part of the day yesterday at an instructor fresher with them, and it sounds like the Corvette Club people who will be running this event have a lot of experience. Definitely a worthhwhile event for all teen drivers to attend at least once, if not twice.

[Trak Ratt]

X3 on what Chris said (over and over) then check out the "spec" requirements for one of the various Beemer classes.... might as well plan for the future ;)

[chillindrdude]

I'd get a x-brace. Check sway bar bushing and endlinks. Consider new ground control coilover is its within your budget

[smdubovsky]

IME, X-brace and upgraded sways not needed until the car is maxed out w/ other things. We ran the GTS2 car (VERY competitively) on stock sways.
1) New bushings. Poly better choice than rubber IMO.
2) shocks/spring. Springs control roll stiffness too. By the time you get to the spring rates you want you may not need additional sways.

[cmartin]

x2 but for a new driver I like the idea of stock/soft and predictable. I like Jazz's methodical inspect/replace the bushings idea. Easy enough to swap in new springs later but too stiff and your ride suffers and the car is a little less forgiving.

[racer]

Nothing wrong with a little (or a lot) of body roll. In fact, I think it would surprise you just how much body roll most cars have when new. Why not bring out the Subaru, or GTI, next time to get a baseline :)

fwiw, there is nothing wrong with body roll. In fact, the amount of roll seen could be attributed to driving style. Learning to control 3200LBs in just 4 small contact patches, is quite a skill. Slamming on brakes or snapping on the steering wheel will all contribute to a car behaving badly and no doubt looking badly to those outside the car. Smooth = Fast .

As Jazz has mentioned and displayed in some pretty remarkable threads, BMWs are made of rubber. Replacing bushings sounds like a nice but boring start. Depending on age (ie, 150-200K miles on this car??) maybe it could be time for new shocks?

Seat time, of course, is the best mod you can make.

[Handlebar]

153,000 on his.

I looked at the sway bars, etc.

My limited assessment supports the recommendation from Jazz - the sway bar 'looks' good/solid - and good condition all around.

The bushings... Yeah, that looks like a good start point.

[Lupin..the..3rd]

Only thing I can think of to add, is that if you're going to trouble of replacing all the worn out rubber stuff, be sure to use quality replacement parts. Genuine BMW is obviously good, Lemforder is good. Meyle is so-so. Uro is crap. The OE stuff will give you another 15+ years of service, while the china-made discount parts will give you 1 or 2 years at most, if you're lucky.

[chillindrdude]

I was under the impression that lemforder and meyle both made BMW OEM parts. All of my "OEM" parts are Lemforder. They look identical to the factory parts they were replacing.

[turkis_tii]

I've got a lot if not most of the rubber bushings for an E36, PM me if interested. The loCal BMW CCA DIYs are a great place to some of this. IMHO, the sway bar upgrade comes after springs and dampers. My son learned to race in karts starting at 13, has awesome driving skills now in SCCA. I heard All Sports GP in NoVa closed, that was an awesome place to learn speed vs. traction, etc. for a generation of kids.

[smdubovsky]

x2 but for a new driver I like the idea of stock/soft and predictable.

By that logic a caddy handles better/safer than a stock bmw? IMO, predictable is a car that does what you ask it to do when you ask it to do it. Stiffer cars are more predictable. Catching a slide on a gokart is a flick of the wrist. Catching a slide on a caddy takes a *LOT* of skill and thinking a couple seconds ahead of the car (not to mention you are already a second 'behind' when it eventually decides to break loose.)

I don't understand the convention of trying to teach new drivers (kids especially) in lousy handling street cars. All of them have ridden bikes - which have razor sharp handling. Almost all of them have driven gokarts (esp any dorki kids.) Yet most want to turn them loose w/ something that handles terrible in comparison? I agree its good to start them w/ something w/ low hp but I'll teach w/ a full track prepped miata vs a stock bmw. The latter isn't predictable.